July 6th, 2001

Nowadays, whenever I open the television for watching a Malayalam programme in the evening, I can see Reshmi Soman ( A TV Actress) crying, wearing a Set Mundu and with a white-washed face, irrespective of the channel - whether it be Surya TV, Asianet or Kairali. But yesterday I was fortunate to watch a good programme in Kairali channel called "AswaMedham". It is a competition in which one participant has to think of some person, and "Manushya Computer" (I forgot his name) will ask up to 21 questions to the participant, trying to find out the person. If couldn't make a guess even after 21 questions, the participant wins and gets gold coins...It was quite interesting. Yesterdays participant was actor PremKumar.

I completed the book "The Mandala of Sherlock Holmes" by Thibet writer, Jamyang Norbu, which won the Crossword award 2000 for best English fiction. This is about the adventures of the great detective in Tibet and India. After the famous encounter with his arch rival Moriarty, Holmes disappears and is not seen for more than two years. All, including Watson, believe that he is dead, but he comes back in "The return of Sherlock Holmes", but doesnt give much explanation about his whereabouts in the last two years. Norbu makes a story out of this, which resulted in a readable book.

Holmes comes to Bombay, meets his Watson in India, Hurree Chandar Mukharjee ( A character by Kipling , I thing ). He solves the mistery of Brass Elephant in the hotel. Upto this part it is as good as any Doyle story of Holmes. Very interesting... Later, Holmes goes to the Holy city of Lhassa, Thibet and he is appointed as the protecter of young Grand Lama of Thibet. There he meets Moriarty again. He was not dead.. He was originally a Thibet occult chambion and had killed the twelfth Lama it seams. He was discharged of his powers and memory by the grand master of School of occult sciences and thrown out of the country. After many years, the fall from the hills after the encounter with Holmes brought back his memory. After this, the story turns to be of a fairy tale nature, and more of "Chandrakantha" than Doyle, with Mandalas (Sree Chakra, skt.) , Crystals, superhuman people and so on, and Sherlock Holmes doesnt have much role to play. Finally it is declared that Holmes also was originally from Thibet, and was killed by Moriarty, after which his soul was transferred to the current Holmes by some "Yogic" practices...!!! The stroy goes on like this until Moriarty is killed and the Lama is rescued.

We can split the book into two, One upto the solution of the murder mistery in Bombay, i.e., Holmes adventures in India, which is very much Doylish, and the other , his adventures in Thibet. All together I will give a rating of 5 out of 10 for the book.